After The Fire: Bright Lights 1974-1983

Rupert Loydell has just published an interesting review of Bright Lights, 1974-1983, After the Fire (6CD box set, Cherry Red)

In his review he concludes: 'In retrospect, After the Fire live played a noisy, high speed new wave pop that never quite translated to record, although at times it came close. Clearly there was a desire for commercial success at play, courtesy CBS/Epic, Mack and some band members, but also room for a genuine place in the rock world, as evidenced by the positive response from Van Halen and their fans. If the sometimes questionable fashions the band at times adopted or the sustained interest in space travel as a metaphor reveals the music’s age, the songs on show here are quirky, energetic and inventive, keyboard or guitar led music that can proudly hold its head up alongside its musical neighbours from the time. The bright lights might have eluded the band, but now we can all hear what we missed out on at the time.'

The definitive collection of After The Fire, 'Bright Lights' contains all of the bands five albums as well as demos, B-sides and live tracks, with 12 recordings that are issued on CD for the first time and 14 that are completely unreleased. The project has been overseen by founding member Peter Banks who, along with members Andy Piercy and John Russell, has been interviewed exclusively for the sleeve notes and has also opened up his photo archive, providing a wealth of rare images.

After the Fire were the first British band to emerge from the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) scene and regularly make the charts. Before U2, before Delerious?, ATF went where no band had gone before. They hit the UK Top Twenty in 1979 with One Rule for You and made the US Top 5 in 1983 with Der Kommissar, in between they sandwiched three chart albums. The only fly in the ointment being that their biggest hit came six months after the band had split. 

Formed by Peter Banks in 1972, early ATF exhibited progressive rock tendencies. All that was lost though by the release of the first CBS album, Laser Love, in 1979 when, on the back of the New Wave, they transmuted into an energetic power pop outfit. Laser Love was - in the title track, Take Me Higher and Like the Power of a Jet - one of the first times when rock music worshipped God in contemporary words and music, a seminal moment indeed. It was therefore no surprise to find ATF lead singer Andy Piercy linked to Delerious? A case of passing the baton on to the then latest runners in the race for CCM visibility, surely.

I was at their final Dominion gig and also saw the Andy Piercy solo performance at Greenbelt. Laser Love, with its worship songs, pre-empts the focus that CCM has subsequently developed on worship music, the attempts by Delirious? and others to take worship music into the charts, and does so with far more original and contemporary imagery than any of the later bands achieved. Laser Love and Batteries Not Included still stand up as excellent albums. The solo Andy Piercy album also has some strong material. It was a real shame that they couldn't sustain it long enough to ride the wave of Der Kommissar. I really enjoyed getting to know Peter Banks, doing some services together with him, and writing 'The Secret Chord' together. Good times.

Writer and poet, Rupert Loydell has also written a great piece for Ship of Fools looking back to the collaborations and collisions between church culture and the wider culture in the 1970s and 80s, with a cast including Jesus Rock Music, the Greenbelt festival, Mary Whitehouse and musicians such as Larry Norman and Steve Fairnie of Writz. Read Rupert's article here.

Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction. He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children); he has also edited anthologies for Shearsman, Salt and Knives, Forks & Spoons Press.

For more on the period about which he writes, read my dialogues with musician and poet Steve Scott here, here, here, here, and here, plus my other posts on CCM. For more of my writing on music, see my co-authored book with Peter Banks, ‘The Secret Chord’, which has been described as an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief.

The book can be purchased from Lulu - https://www.lulu.com/shop/jonathan-evens-and-peter-banks/the-secret-chord/paperback/product-1pey2g67.html?q=peter+banks&page=1&pageSize=4

Covering a range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, The Secret Chord conveys enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers. The book asks is there really a 'Secret Chord' that would both please the Lord and nearly everybody else as described in Leonard Cohen's popular song 'Hallelujah'? 

While a significant number of books have been published exploring the relationships between music, art, popular culture and theology - many of which Peter and I have enjoyed and from which we have benefited - such books tend either to academic analysis or semi biography about artistes whose output the writers' enjoy. By contrast, 'The Secret Chord' is an accessible exploration of artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives which seeks to draw the reader into a place of appreciation for what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special.

The Secret Chord seeks to explore a number of the dilemmas which musicians and other artists face, not so much in order to map out one route through or around these dilemmas but in an attempt to get the creative juices flowing. Our experience of creativity is of disparate and often contradictory ideas being crushed, swirled, fermented, shaken and stirred in our minds in order that the fine wine of creativity results. Our hope is that The Secret Chord, by exploring artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives, will mature in reader’s minds just like fine wine or a precious pearl.

Peter Banks and I wanted to write a book that would be an accessible interesting read but also with sufficient depth to engage those with an interest in academic and theological study. Peter is a successful composer and musician with mainstream chart successes in many countries in the world within his most well known musical collaboration, 'After The Fire'. As well as a musician he has worked in other creative industries and now contributes professionally to various online publications as well as his popular music and technology blog, The BanksyBoy Brief.

Rev Dr Hugh Rayment-Pickard, author and co-founder of IntoUniversity said "Secret Chord is well written, full of wisdom, great quotes and illustrations. It's great to read something about art and Christianity that embraces such diverse material."

Carol Biss, Managing Director of Book Guild Publishing, said “Secret Chord is an interesting and impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life, written through the prism of Christian belief. Covering a huge range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, Secret Chord conveys a great enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers, which readers are sure to find engaging.”

Heather Joy Rowe said it is a highly informative and eye-opening book: 'The writers ... are delving into the arts, mainly looking at the subject from a theological point of view and they have certainly opened my eyes as before reading this book I had a very 'one-dimensional view' of this huge subject.'

Another response noted: "For someone who treats music as art, as something to be understood as an art form within a particular context etc etc, or someone who is themselves creatively active, then it's certainly interesting and worthwhile reading. You might have an epiphany!"

Rod Williamson said: "The book gives a very thoughtful look at the artist's role, inspiration, challenge and so on. There are many examples and anecdotes from popular and classical fields, and beyond the realms of music. As one who wouldn't know the difference between a D minor and a Morris Minor it kept my attention throughout, but I'm sure it would appeal to the Monsieur Highbrow fraternity."

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After The Fire - Laser Love.

Steve Scott dialogues 2: Networking

JE:

I've very much enjoyed reading 'Crying for a Vision' and particularly liked the breadth of your frame of reference - essentially, what Rupert Loydell notes as you linking "a number of fields of inquiry that are usually perceived as unrelated." This, it seems to me, is linked to your interest in collage and I appreciated the way in which this interest was explored and expressed through the chapters describing your collaboration with Gaylen Stewart and ways of giving 'voice' to the multicultural reality of the 21st century church in the arts.

This is a real encouragement to me as it has also become foundational to my understanding of both the arts and the bible but without finding many others who share those connections and interests. The way I came to what I think of as a reconciliatory approach to art and faith was via 'The Waste Land', the work of David Jones and the paintings of Chagall (http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2010/01/airbrushed-from-art-history-15.html).

My sense was that in each fragments of materials were being linked and combined in ways that made emotional and artistic (although not necessarily logical) wholes or harmonies but which also multiplied references and resonances between the fragments that were being reconciled. I was helped enormously in understanding the work of these artists in this way by the writings of Nicholas Mosley who, although not referring to Eliot, Jones or Chagall, was explicit about his attempts to write in an elusive and allusive style in order to make similar connections and who linked his attempts to do so to his understanding of Christianity (http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/search/label/mosley).

This thinking about the arts was then combined (via my ministerial training) with exploration of post-modernism and reading of the likes of Walter Brueggemann, Gabriel Josipovici, Mark Oakley and Mike Riddell on the Bible to arrive at an understanding of the Bible as fragments collaged together into an endlessly resonating harmony. (See http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/02/allusive-elusive-1.html, http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/02/allusive-and-elusive-2,%20http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/02/allusive-and-elusive-3.html,%20http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/02/allusive-and-elusive-4.html,%20html,http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/02/allusive-elusive-5.html)

Another area of interest was in your links with the likes of Nigel Goodwin, Andy Piercy, and Steve Fairnie. I hadn't realised the extent to which there had been links between these from a relatively young age which presumably supported the work that they went on to do as pioneers in the UK in expressing faith through the Arts. It wasn't until I did my ministerial training that I found a network of like-minded Christians with interests in the arts to which I could relate and it is interesting to get a glimpse of the fact that similar networks of support have been important for others too in support of their development. Rupert Loydell once included one of my poems in a Stride publication and critiqued an article that I wrote for 'Strait' on Ted Hughes but I didn't have sufficient confidence in myself or my work at that time to forge the kind of connections that you made. I now really value the networks that I do have and hope that commission4mission as it develops can provide that kind of incubation for new generations of artists.

SS:

Of deep roots and family trees ... Rupert Loydell is now senior lecturer in creative writing in the University of Falmouth. He connected with me in the late 1980s, as referred by Steve Turner. He is also related, I think, to Bev Sage, who at one point was Bev Fairnie. Bev I met in the late 60s/early 70s, she was part of a singing trio called Soul Truth (with Judy, who became Judy Piercey). We all met up in 1969ish at a Youth for Christ event in Torquay. Soul Truth, the Canon Harry Sutton (speaker) the young Nigel Goodwin (pre Arts Centre Group), Steve Fairnie, an undergraduate from Bristol (and Steve Rowsie), Andy Piercey who was to be part of Ishmael and Andy prior to After The Fire. Goodwin went on to begin the ACG in South Kensington attracting the likes of poet Stewart Henderson, poet/journalist Steve Turner, graphic designer/filmmaker Norman Stone (and so on, names too numerous to mention etc.). Fairnie did grad work at the Royal College of Art/married Bev.

All this is to say that networking, facilitation, encouragement and support to artists, thinkers, emerging etc. is very important and often times you don't see `fruit' outside of just the support-at-the-time, for years. But looking back over the years (decades!) there's all kinds of primary and secondary impact not just on the church but also on the culture at large. All this is to say that the gift of networking is an underrated charism.

JE:

It was a remarkably fruitful period from which I certainly benefitted. Reading 'Buzz' and then 'Strait' was what introduced me to the work of many of those that you mention. I read Steve Turner, Stewart Henderson and Rupert Loydell and had poetry and reviews published in 'Strait' while Stewart Henderson was its Editor. Rupert Loydell included one of my poems in a Stride compilation (although he wanted to excise the word 'God' from the poem) and he critiqued an article that I wrote for 'Strait' on Ted Hughes in which I concluded that elements of Hughes' writings were dangerous (which raised Rupert's hackles). I've been a ACG member for some years without ever having gotten deeply involved. I listened to ATF and The Technos and was at the Dominion for ATF's final gig. Their originality, it seems to me, was in writing contemporary worship songs using contemporary imagery (lazers, jet planes etc.), something that those, like Delerious?, who have followed in their wake have generally been unable to achieve (Delerious' imagery being drawn generally from the pool of scriptural imagery). All of this fed my imagination, kick started my fascination for the differing ways artists express their faith in and through their work, and demonstrated that it was possible to be Christian and creative.

SS:

Yep. And prior to `Buzz' was Vista. I recall Buzz as almost a broadsheet, or at least somewhat diminutive in its first issues. My only or main recall of Strait was when Garth Hewitt was in the loop. And there was an ACG magazine THE CUT that became or later resurfaced as ARTYFACT.

Speaking of the early 70s, I can recall the first issues of TIME OUT. I mention this because I linked on Facebook to a TIMEOUT HK edition interview with artist Makoto Fujimura who, if youre not thoroughly acquainted with him already, then i suggest becoming so.

Yes to ATF's use of contemporary imagery. Also to Fairnie and co's use of media. I also recall around thebeginning of the 2000s (2001 or 2) someone giving me a link to something called `smallfire' alt: worship in UK. It was from there I got into a brief Edialog with Jonny Baker.

Whilst an art student I went to the Cambridge Poetry Festival (73) and saw Ted Hughes reading live. Also Lee Harwood, Eric Mottram. John Ashbery from NY read terribly, but I later got into his stuff `on the page' Got to chat with Nathaniel Tarn who turned me on to a magazine called Alcheringa, a journal of Ethnopoetics co edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Goerge Quasha. Rothenberg is a poet and a justly famous anthologist of world ethnopoetry/poetics 'Technicians of the Sacred'. To my everlasting regret I did not buy the just published first edition of John Heath Stubbs `Artorius' even though he was there, reading and perhaps signing, although his vision was possibly shot by then. 'Artorius' (from what I've read of it) does Arthur/Britain a bit like David Jones and Wales (or pre Roman Britain).

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Writz - Private Lives.